Need Help???

I have a MIM Fender Jazz bass that I am making better. I am replacing the bridge and the pick ups. I already have the bridge and I am now stuck on what pick ups to use?? The sound and tone I am going for is from Jazz to Heavy. The tone I love is right between Jaco Pastorius and Victor Bailey. I am looking at Bartolini's, Basslines, EMG, Dimarzio, and Fender custom shop 60's Jazz bass. Also I want to put them in myself. So which pick-up whould give me the best all around tone and easy to install?? I am also getting the J-Retro preamp.

The J-Retro will do wonders for your tone, but it won't eliminate hum or improve crappy pickups. The MIM J are single coils and will give you both the hum as well as the single coil tone. A good shielding job will go a long way to reducing hum.

If you have a 2001 or newer MIM bass, you have the standard-sized bridge pickup. If older, your pickup is narrower, and you will have to rout the body to make a standard pickup fit.

I bought a set of DiMarzio Model J pickups for my 2001 MIM J fretless. I also have a J-Retro in hand, but none are yet installed due to other projects consuming all my time. The DM Model J are not as bright as the DM Ultra Jazz. Both DM models are hum cancelling in solo mode. DM uses bi-lateral coils (side by side) instead of a pair of coils or a stack. The Model J won the BP Magazine tone award, FWIW.

The DM are 4-wire so you can wire them to a DPDT switch and run them either Series or Parallel mode. This wiring trick results in a substantial difference in tone, but has no effect on hum. My Fender RB5 uses this technique and it is very effective.